The present invention generally relates to changes being made in our daily lives, in our thinking and in our routines to avoid the use of one-time disposable materials and to substitute reusable or recyclable materials instead to reduce or eliminate solid waste. More particularly, it relates to a new and improved reusable garment bag for use by dry cleaning customers and establishments which serves as a sack-like carrier for clothing to be cleaned and as a sheath like protector for cleaned and ironed clothing arranged on hangers.
Public awareness of environmental crises and issues confronting our society has risen sharply in the last two decades. Recently, environmental issues have become important even at local levels in our municipalities. Smaller towns and villages now are being required to consider and adopt alternative disposal plans for lawn and yard waste and solid waste because of a critical shortage of landfill space. To help make existing landfill facilities last longer before they become completely filled up, most municipalities have adopted mandatory or voluntary recycling practices. "Earth day", citizen activist groups, scientists and a large number of television documentaries and public information and service programs have all increased public awareness of these issues.
As more information becomes available, consumers have clearly indicated their level of concern and their commitment to search for and be part of solutions to these problems. Nowadays, increasing numbers of consumers are using some form of curbside recycling and are composting their yard waste, for example. In a recent poll conducted by a national newspaper organization, sixty percent (60%) of the people polled said they were willing to pay more for goods and services for a cleaner environment. Seventy-two percent (72%) said they already employ some form of household recycling and ninety-three percent (93%) said that recycling of newspapers, bottles and cans should be mandatory. Fifty-two percent (52%) of the respondents indicated that they had already changed their buying practices by boycotting products sold by companies they thought were polluting the environment. Finally, the results of the survey indicated that although sixty-seven percent (67%) were most worried about hazardous waste, a majority of people, e.g. 54%, indicated that they now felt guilty about using products with unnecessary packaging.
Public awareness of environmental issues is also apparent from the large numbers of customers approaching their dry cleaners wanting to know if alternative plans for disposal of the plastic poly bags, other than landfill disposal, are being organized and arranged. The current practice is for the consumer to remove the poly bags from the garments and throw them in the trash. Recent best estimates are that over one billion dry cleaner bags and over one billion metal hangers are disposed of each year from drycleaned garments in municipal landfills, and the numbers may be considerably higher. This estimate represents, for example, two articles of dry cleaning for every 100 million of working americans per week, or only 100 dry cleaning bags per person per year.
Current efforts to make dry cleaning services more environmentally sound have included proposals for recycling the plastic bags. More particularly, in accordance with one recycling proposal, the consumer is responsible for collecting the plastic bags and returning them to the dry cleaner. The dry cleaner is responsible for storing the collected bags until they are transported back to the manufacturer for recycling.
This proposal has a number of disadvantages associated with it. For the consumer, the consumer must collect the bags over a given time period and then return them to the neighborhood dry cleaner. The inconvenience associated with this practice or change in practice may predictably result in only a small percentage of customers participating in the activity. For the dry cleaners, containers and space have to be provided to permit the bags to be accumulated and stored for a period of time before they are returned to the supplier. Dry cleaning plants in storefronts are most commonly the most cluttered area in town and little or no space is available for the collection bins especially in front customer service areas. Accordingly, bags collected at the front of the store may have to be moved to a rear storage container. This may tend to increase the cost of labor which is the highest cost of business for a dry cleaner. For the bag supplier, the bags must be collected from the various dry cleaning establishments and returned to the manufacturer for recycling. These extra responsibilities will add to the cost in terms of labor and transportation for the bag suppliers. Furthermore, at the present time, it is not known whether any of the poly bag manufacturers are equipped to recycle poly bags. The recycling process, if it needs to be developed, will require capital investment and time for research, equipment and labor, further adding to the costs of implementing a recycling program.
To overcome the shortcomings and disadvantages of the prior art practices and proposals, it is an object of the present invention to provide a new and improved arrangement for handling dry cleaning which substantially reduces or eliminates production of solid waste in the form of poly bags and metal hangers requiring disposal.
It is another object of the present invention to generally reduce or eliminate from our lifestyles and daily routines the use of one-time disposable packaging and materials in cyclical service arrangements in our society and to substitute reusable and recyclable products for use therein, to reduce the generation of non-biodegradable and other solid waste requiring landfill disposal.